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the "canned presets" should be used for a starting point, not a destination. Depending on the model of your choice the motions of the figure can be slightly different. Along with other sources of preset poses (there are dozens) you may also benefit from 3rd party morphs that allow for body modifications that happen naturally in humans and not so much in models. I suggest you look at people around you, photographs and still art and see what makes any pose seem realistic of not.
To me a pose is not finished until I add a facial expression otherwise it looks suspiciously like pantomime.

Poses can make or break an image cause if they do not look natural then it stands out like a sore thumb. We can easily detect when something "human" in appearence is fake cause it lacks the finer details that we all do and see but when it comes to reproducing it in art, we tend to forget those same details.

I started out the exact same way and when I did my first pose from scratch I remember it was really tough to do.

I dont know your background as an artist so what I am about to say may seem a little odd but please trust me.

Remember that DAZ Studio is just the tool that you are using to do your art. It will not magically make art for you or make it look good. The tools may no longer be paint and a canvas or a pencil and paper, but the foundational rules of art remain the same regardless of the tool.

So the first thing I would really recommend if you want to start making your own poses is to step away from the computer and take a moment to observe. Literally. Whether drawing the human figure or posing one in a 3D program, you cannot expect to have it look right if you dont first observe and understand how the human body moves. The best way I can think of that you could start learning to obseve and learn is to take a step back and do some drawing. Yes, drawing. Take a look at this tutorial here - http://warrenlouw.deviantart.com/art/IFX-Strike-A-Pose-163076761 - yes its about drawing but all the principals are the same, just the tool is different. Now you are going to need to draw from something so whether you outside and observe or use images off the net is up to you. But please, seriously take some time and go over that. Now I am not suggesting you learn to draw a very detailed human body, but instead learn the basics so that you concentrate on the pose insead of the final appearence of a drawing. Part of the reason why I suggest his tutorial is cause he does not go beyond the pose really. (btw, dont worry too much about perspective drawing. Perspective is automatice in 3D space)

Spend as much time as you feel you need on just drawing. As you start to understand a bit about the human body and how it moves then we can start looking at it in 3D. With the 3D human DAZ figures, when it comes to posing, the hip is your starting point. The hip is the pivitol center of the human body and it always moves, it is never perfectly zeroed. As you can see from the drawing tutorial. From there, I tend to work on the legs and then up on the torso and arms. I usally bounce back and fourth just to help myself visualize as I go along. With the Generation 3 and Gen4 figures, you have just the hip for that part of the body. in Genesis however, there is a hip and pelvis. The difference is that hip does what the hip does. The Pelvis allows you to move the hip area but only effect the legs. With hands, i personally find that Genesis has the best hands for posing since it has two extra bones in it to help create more realistic movement.

Now in DS you have several ways to adjust the pose, my personal preference is using the Node Selection Tool (the Arrow icon) and the rotation dials on the Parameter tab. Translation dials too. When it comes to moving the figure manually up or down, left or right, you can do so with the hip node and body translation at the base node, the figure itself. When it comes to moving around the scene and observing the pose, I find it best to use the Perspective Camera since its movements are not recorded in the Undo memory. Also, if you find an angle you like with your perspective cam, you can create new camera that copies that exact angle and continue on with your pose.

Eyes will need to be adjusted as well. instead of relying once again on other premade poses, I find it best to create a null and move it 5000 units in the direction I want the character to look. Then I select both eyes in the scene tab, go to the Parameter Tab and find "Point At..." and select the null I just created. Now you may not see the eyes look to it right away. In some cases a slider will suddenly appear on the Parameter Tab and you need to set it to 100%. The point of doing this is that it allows you to easily move your characters eyes around together and have it look as though they are looking at things. Plus you can adjust your pose and have the character maintain eye contact. This works better with pre-genesis figures but it still works on Genesis1&2 as well

Also if you wish, you can take a look at my older freebie poses if you want to disect them any. Please bare in mind that they are older and I have grown as an artist since I did them.

Another thing to keep in mind when posing is Gravity. When you look at how someone stands its all about distributing weight along an axis of gravity. Each stance will have a dominant foot which is holding the majority of the persons weight and from that point there will be a central axis leading through the body. If an arm is raised the rest of the body will need to adjust to compensate for the weight change. Keeping this in mind will help to add realism to creating poses.

I dont know your background as an artist so what I am about to say may seem a little odd but please trust me.

Thanks, appreciate the reply. For a sampling of my art kindly check out my online gallery. I dabble in photography using a dslr (olympus E500, Olympus E620, Nikon D3300), digital drawing/painting with ArtRage, Corel Painter & Photoshop. 3D rendering using Vue Complete 2014 and do some modeling in mostly Hexagon3D, Wings3D & Groboto3D. I also use Sculptris. For texturing I use UV Mapper Classic and 3DCoat.

I pose my figures in Daz3D Studio 4.7 Pro and export them to Vue to be used in my scenes....

Cause in all honesty, moving the figure is not the hard part, its making them look natural. And thats not anything to do with the software as much as it is personal skill developed over time with practice.

I would like to evolve beyond using the canned pose presets and templates to create my own unique poses for DAZ figures which will be exported to Vue Complete 2014 for rendering….

Whether it is easy or not is not my query nor whether the pose is natural or not. My question is strictly whether these tutorials exist. A simple YES or NO and if YES a link to the tutorials is all I'm asking and would be greatly appreciated instead of the other clutter in this thread...:-)

I am getting totally frustrated with the posing controls in DAZ and once more I would like to ask if anyone knows of any advanced tutorials for posing in DAZ3D Studio. Again I'm asking for tutorials on using DAZ to create advanced poses. I am NOT asking for tutorials on drawing, painting anatomy or figures. Nor am I asking for posing templates.

Why are you implying I am discounting traditional art & photography books. I have quite a few in my small library...Including the Andrew Loomis book.

IF I wanted to know what is a good anatomy book for artists or a tutorial for photographers... I would have ASKED... However, I am only interested in tutorials for posing in DAZ 3D and not Poser or drawing/sketching/painting....

Speaking for myself I only ever pose figures using the controls in the Parameters tab. I select the joint node in the Scene tab, switch to the Parameters tab then carefully set the control for one or more of the axes until it is where I want it to be. There is no "technique" as such. It is slow and painstaking, but if you are serious about producing a good picture that shouldn't really matter. If a picture is going to take two or three days, as mine often do, then spending two or three hours on a pose is not that excessive. I don't use PowerPose and I don't use the Universal tool, though I am sure there are many here who do to good effect.